CNN legal analyst Page Pate on Monday detailed just how much trouble Michael Cohen is in—and explained the amount of evidence the FBI must have had in order to carry out a raid on the longtime Donald Trump attorney’s office and residence.
“I think Cohen has to be in a lot of trouble,” Pate told CNN’s Don Lemon. “You don't execute a search warrant like this—multiple search warrants like this—without a solid foundation. What I would love to see is the affidavit supporting these search warrants, the statement made by the agents to establish enough probable cause to get a judge to sign off on this warrant.”
“It's not a witch hunt. it's not a fishing expedition,” Pate said. “They have identified probable cause.”
Lemon then played a clip of Trump conflating the FBI raid on Cohen with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation—and complaining that he would not have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Sessions would recuse himself.
“You heard President Trump [say] that Sessions made a mistake and then he referred back to not recusing himself,” Pate said. “I think in this situation, given the fact that Main Justice probably know about these search warrants before they were executed, that Sessions had an opportunity to step in and stop this—just like the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York—and no one did.”
“So what does that tell you that's in this affidavit?” Pate continued. “What evidence is it that they have pinpointed that Michael Cohen has access to that will prove evidence of some crime? I cannot wait to see what's in the affidavit because I think it’s going to shock us all.”
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